Source: Amnesty International
Iran's presidential election on 12 June, will
take place against a backdrop of discrimination, worsening repression of dissent
and violent unrest.
In the run-up to its tenth presidential election from which women candidates
have been barred, the country has witnessed the arbitrary arrest and harassment
of activists and members of minority communities, censorship, armed attacks and
suicide bombings.
Amnesty International has welcomed the commitments made by some electoral
candidates during their campaigns to address the issue of women's rights and the
problems of ethnic minorities and the poor. "The ongoing efforts of women's
rights activists have forced the issue of women's rights into the debate,
sometimes at the cost of their freedom," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East
and North Africa Deputy Programme Director at Amnesty International. "All
candidates should heed their calls for equality and make ending discrimination a
priority."
Another issue requiring urgent action from the new president is the execution of
juveniles for crimes committed when they were children. "At least 139 juveniles
are on death row in Iran," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui. "The outrage after the
execution of young painter Delara Darabi, the debates in the country and the
initiatives of civil society to end this abhorrent practice must be matched by
decisive action by the new president."
The organization has expressed its concern about Iran's discriminatory selection
process for electoral candidates, which involves the Council of Guardians
screening all candidates for election to "ensure their suitability for the
Presidency".
In a public statement on 15 May, Amnesty International urged the Council of
Guardians to ensure that no one was excluded from standing as a candidate solely
on the grounds of their race, colour, sex, language, religion, social origin or
political or other opinion and that none of the 42 women who registered to stand
were barred solely on account of their gender. However, all but four candidates
were excluded, including all the women candidates.
The four remaining candidates are: current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; former
Speaker of Parliament Mehdi Karroubi; Mohsen Rezai, former Commander of the
Revolutionary Guards and current Secretary of the Expediency Council; and Mir
Hossein Mousavi, who served as Iran's Prime Minister during the Iran-Iraq war in
the 1980s.
Iranians have faced censorship during the campaign: the authorities blocked
access to the social networking web sites Facebook and, briefly, Twitter on 23
May. Candidates and their supporters opposing current president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad had been using the sites to spread information as part of their
campaigns. Surprised by the outcry, the authorities unblocked access to Facebook
three days later.
The campaign of Mir Hossein Mousavi - himself a member of the Azerbaijani
minority - has attracted allegations of racism after a video posted on YouTube
on 14 May allegedly showed former President Mohammad Khatami (who supports Mr
Mousavi) making comments belittling Iranian Azerbaijanis. Mr Khatami has since
stated that the video was a fake. In the days after the video surfaced, hundreds
of Azerbaijani activists held rallies and made protests, demanding an apology
from Mr Khatami. Some have been arrested and are being held in incommunicado
detention.
In the pre-election period, Amnesty International has also received reports
suggesting increased waves of arbitrary arrests and harassment targeting in
particular members of Iran's religious and ethnic minority communities,
including Baha'is and converts from Islam, students, trade unionists and women's
rights activists.
Emad Bahavar, of the banned Iran Freedom Movement, who was campaigning for the
presidential election of Mir-Hossein Mosavi, was detained on 27 May on suspicion
of "spreading propaganda against the system".
It was reported that Mr Bahavar, 31, was detained by an order issued by the
Revolutionary Court. Security guards searched Mr Bahavar's residence and a
number of his personal effects, such as his computer, were confiscated. Mr
Bahavar was reported to have been released on Tuesday.
Other cases of arbitrary detention include the arrest on 19 April of Mehdi
Mo'tamedi Mehr, a member of the Committee to Defend Free, Healthy and Fair
Elections and a member of the Freedom Movement.
Before his arrest he had been called by a Ministry of Intelligence official and
told that publication of a statement entitled Civil Society Institution as
Election Observers: An Assurance toward Free, Healthy and Fair Elections by
the Committee would be an act against national security.
The statement was published anyway, and he was arrested. He has been accused of
"acting against state security". On 29 April, security forces prevented other
members of the committee from holding a meeting in the Raad Legal Institute
which belongs to Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a prominent lawyer and member of the High
Oversight Council of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). The CHRD
headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi was forcibly closed in
December 2008 and has not been allowed to reopen.
At least two Amir Kabir University students remain detained without trial by the
Ministry of Intelligence in Section 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran following their
arrests in February 2009. Other students arrested with them who have since been
released have said that they were tortured in detention. On 28 April 2009, a
Revolutionary Court judge said that eight students, including those still
detained, had been accused of cooperating with the People's Mojahedin
Organization of Iran, an opposition group based in exile. He added that they had
intended to ìcarry out some activities in the universityî during the forthcoming
election.
Jelveh Javaheri is the only woman among around 20 people still held after their
arrest on 1 May 2009. She is a member of the One Million Signatures Campaign
(also known as the Campaign for Equality), which is collecting signatures to a
petition demanding equal rights for women.
Most - including Jelveh Javaheri's journalist husband Kaveh Mozaffari - were
arrested in Laleh Park in Tehran where a celebration of International Workers'
Day was being held, but Jelveh Javaheri was arrested at home without an arrest
warrant when security officials came with her husband to search their house.
She has since been charged with "acting against national security through
membership in the One Million Signatures Campaign and with the aim of disrupting
public order and security."
"By imprisoning people for merely expressing dissenting views, the Iranian
authorities are stifling the free debate which is a pre-requisite of elections,"
said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui. "Citizens should be able to freely express their
grievances and their demands so that candidates can address them."
"All individuals and groups should be allowed to peacefully exercise their
rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, including in ways
which dissent from state policies and practices, in the run-up to the
presidential election."
In the run-up to the elections violent unrest has intensified in Sistan-Baluchistan
province in south-eastern Iran. A member of the armed Baluch group, the People's
Resistance Movement of Iran (PRMI) carried out a suicide bomb attack on a mosque
in the provincial capital of Zahedan on 28 May. Up to 25 people were reported to
have been killed and dozens more were injured. The PRMI said that the attack was
a reprisal for the execution of several Sunni clerics in recent years.
"The bombing of the mosque is a total disregard of principles of international
humanitarian law, by which the PRMI has pledged to abide. We condemn it
unreservedly," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
Less than 48 hours after the bombing, three men were hanged in public near the
site of the attack amid claims that they were responsible. Later comments
clarified that the three men had been in detention at the time of the bombing,
but that they had "confessed" to providing the explosives used in the bombing.
Further unrest broke out afterwards with up to ten people killed, and dozens
arrested.
Iran's Baluch minority suffer discrimination by the state authorities leading to
gross violations of their economic, social and cultural rights. They live mainly
in the provinces of Sistan-Balouchistan and Kerman, and are believed to
constitute between one to three per cent of the country's total population of
around 70 million. They are mainly Sunni Muslims, whereas the majority of Iran's
population are Shi'a Muslims.
Iran: Ensure free presidential election (Public statement, 15 May 2009)
Iran: Human Rights in the spotlight on the 30th Anniversary of the Islamic
Revolution (Report, 5 February 2009)
Iran: Worsening repression of dissent as election approaches (Report, 1
February 2009)
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